This page features a series of lists of maritime features in the Spratly Islands.
Of the hundreds of maritime features in the Spratly Islands, relatively few have land permanently above sea-level that is larger than protruding rocks. There are only 13 islands and cays with a natural area above sea-level larger than one hectare. With the exception of Swallow Reef, prior to 2014 there had been no large-scale land reclamation beyond building breakwaters and piers, and extending runways.
This changed dramatically in 2014 with the PRC embarking on large-scale reclamations of the lagoons of Johnson South Reef (~10ha) and Fiery Cross Reef (~230ha), and other reclamations of then unknown extent at the Gaven Reefs and Cuarteron Reef. Reports of the extent of land reclaimed on Swallow Reef vary. The PRC land reclamations have continued on a total of seven sites. In 2015, Subi Reef, Hughes Reef and Mischief Reef were added. Refer to the table below for the most recently available data. In summary, there have been reclamations of very large areas (640 acres = 1 sq mile) at three sites by the PRC, reclamations of large areas (10-100 acres) at eight sites (four by PRC, three by Vietnam, and one by Malaysia) and reclamations of lesser areas at a number of sites. There does not appear to have been any reclamation of Philippine occupied areas. There have been small Taiwanese reclamations at Itu Aba, very small but functionally significant reclamations at six Malaysian sites, and a number small but significant reclamations at Vietnamese sites in 2016, most particularly at Spratly Island where the runway has been extended and a sheltered harbour added.
The following table contains the 16 largest "natural" features, (i.e. not including reclaimed land), plus the features with significant amounts of reclaimed land:
The boundaries of the Spratly Islands are not firmly defined. West-to-east, the islands range from the coastal waters of Vietnam to the east of Dangerous Ground and the Palawan Passage (approx. 106-117ðE), and south-to-north from the coastal waters of Borneo and the southern South China Sea to the north of Dangerous Ground and the Reed Bank (approx. 3-12ðN).
The major feature of the area is Dangerous Ground, an oblong area approximately SW-NE, at its widest, with an area of about 52,000 nmò (178,000 kmò). It lies approximately between 7.5âÂÂ12ðN, 113âÂÂ117ðE, and US NGA literature<sup>etc.</sup> seems to consider its centre as . The remainder of the Spratly Islands are mainly to the west and south of Dangerous Ground, with some features to the east.
The Spratly Islands can be roughly divided into seven sub-areas relative to Dangerous Ground:
Within these sub-areas there are a number of major reefs and banks, as well as ungrouped maritime features.
Starting in the NW, and progressing in a generally SW direction, the features include:
A feature is occupied by a country if one of the following is true:
The effective visible distance of horizon from a 15-meter (typical large structure) height above sea-level is . This makes features occupied by the second condition to be also labeled as "occupied" since they can be guarded far away. However, not all features within the radius can be considered as absolutely occupied. This is especially true for features that lie between and within of two or more features occupied by different countries. (See Virtually Occupied or Controlled table)
Note that Louisa Reef was controlled by Brunei since 2009.
Note that the Royal Malaysian Navy have established 5 Offshore naval stations (Offshore EEZ Stations) on reclaimed land: